Refuge
by Mirune Keishiko
Summary: Even as a fierce blizzard looms on the horizon, Sagara Megumi finds herself with more than just a truant husband on her hands.


This takes place several years after the events in RuroKen; Sano and Megumi are happily married and living in Aizu. Megumi is (still) a doctor and Sanosuke is a sort of secret intelligence cop-guy.

(Actually while I was writing this I had in mind my other story, Yoake Mae no Yami ni, where things get explained a little more fully. But you don't have to read that story for this one to make sense. /shamelessplug)

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Refuge**  
by Mirune Keishiko

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There was a certain banked heat in the eyes that he raised to her, a certain furtive want, and it took all of Sagara Megumi's courage to look up from the soup she was making and meet his shadowed gaze where he hulked in the doorway. 

"I hope Minamoto-san is doing well," she said, with a tight smile.

"Already he is coughing less." The man known to her as Hibayashi had a voice as big and rough and seemingly ill-at-ease as his body, as if he didn't know quite what to do with it and would have hidden it away if he could. It seemed to echo, too large and too loud, against the low ceiling. "My friends and I are in your debt, sensei."

Megumi lifted the heavy pot from the fire, glad for the excuse to look away from the quiet hunger in his stare. "Think nothing of it. I could hardly have left you outside in this weather."

They had come unexpectedly, soon after the snowstorm had reached full force that morning. At the thumping on the door Megumi's waiting heart had leaped in gladness, thinking Sano had returned at last from his latest assignment; but then she had thrown the bolt and peered out at five bedraggled men shivering in their dirty, tattered robes in the frosty wind, and suddenly she had felt the chill reach her bones.

But the one called Minamoto was seriously ill, and though she had heard of the gang of five bandits that had been haunting the mountain trails in the past few months, she had snuffed out her fear with her unrelenting sense of duty and taken them into her empty house. This winter was unusually harsh, even for Aizu; most of her neighbors, like her old housekeeper, had gone somewhere warmer to pass the season, and the nearest clinic was too far to travel in the blizzard.

Hibayashi seemed to be the leader of the group, addressing her directly as the others seemed hesitant to do. His tone, though polite, was dubious, but he seemed to accept that while his companion needed better care than Megumi could give at her home, she would shelter them until they could move him to a downtown hospital.

And now the men crowded around her dining table, their broad shoulders making the small, stuffy room seem even smaller and stuffier, muttering and whispering among themselves, then falling silent when she came in with the trays of food. They had taken it upon themselves to light the lamps; it must not have been half past two in the afternoon, but darkness fell early with the sleet.

Megumi drew a deep, silent breath as she entered the room, keeping her gaze low while feeling keenly the unabashed, admiring stares of the men who surrounded her. She remembered the wary glances these men had exchanged when she had begun to tend to their sick comrade, the thrumming of her blood in her ears when she bade them strip him of his snow-wet clothing and then heard the telltale clunk of steel.

Where was the toriatama when she needed him?

Several seconds passed, as she carefully knelt and placed the trays on the table amid the deafening silence—and then, as if suddenly awakening from a stupor, all started forward, shamefaced, awkward, coarse, offering to pour this or serve that or pass around the other. She would have laughed, but she found that faintly smiling was the best she could do.

She had just left some food and weak tea with the sick man in her guest room when Hibayashi called to her. He was coming in through the back entrance, striding in as calmly as though he owned the place, brushing snow from his cloak; Megumi glimpsed the hilt of some weapon protruding from his belt and said nothing.

"I heard noises, sensei, from outside. Do you own that horse out there?"

_Yes,_ thought Megumi, looking out the window, her breath stolen from her, _yes, my husband has a horse just like that, brown with gray spots down the right foreleg, only he shouldn't be here, because Sanosuke always takes him on his trips and he doesn't let anyone else ride..._

And how had this man heard those noises anyway, when to the common ear the moaning wind and shin-deep snow drowned out all else?

This time it was she whose eyes must have been too honest. With a last, lingering glance Hibayashi called two of his companions, who poked their heads into the kitchen still wiping grains of rice from their mouths on their sleeves. Megumi tried to insist, tried to be firm about their catching their deaths of cold if they went out now, but Hibayashi was unyielding, and she found herself telling them that Sano still wore his old, battered white jacket and brown cloak for traveling. When she came to the kanji for "evil" tattooed on the back of his shoulder she realized she was blushing again, but she raised her chin proudly, and Hibayashi might have smiled.

He overrode his comrades' complaints with his curt orders, as coarsely and thoroughly as he had earlier watched Megumi in her kitchen. The two men left within minutes, joking about promises of more hot soup when they came back, and wordlessly Megumi watched from her doorway as they vanished into the gusting white wilderness on their own bony mares.

She turned just in time to see Hibayashi quickly avert his gaze.

"I'll see to Minamoto," he rumbled in his unwieldy voice, and left.

In the kitchen she washed the dishes and then, for lack of anything better to do, ground some herbs she had dried, her feet cold from the stone floor and her heart from fresh, silent worry as she worked. She heard Hibayashi join his last remaining companion in the dining area, heard the click of dice being rolled and low voices murmuring together indistinctly.

Rising and falling, occasionally giving way to a bark of gruff laughter, the men's voices formed a rhythm more soothing than Megumi thought possible. Soon, without quite deciding on it, she put aside her pestle, laid her head on her arm across the table and fell asleep, in the chill, listless gloom of uncounted hours falling soundlessly away with the snow.

* * *

"Tadaima."

She awoke with a start, blinked up at a tall man in a damp cloak looming in the doorway. This time the hunger in his gaze was welcome, and she ran into his arms without a word.

Megumi had rarely in her life allowed herself to take shelter in a man's presence, but with Sano by her side, she found meeting Hibayashi's gaze much easier. The two men spoke together, hesitant and polite at first, then gradually warming—but not too much—as Hibayashi framed his men's business in the vaguest terms possible, and Sanosuke did not pry.

"You're welcome to stay till you can move your friend downtown." Sanosuke grinned at the man over the steaming food Megumi had warmed up for him. "I owe you and your men for bringing me back, and for giving me a place to stay for a while too."

She shot him a quizzical look, and the moment Hibayashi was gone Sano drew her close, nuzzling his cold nose against her warm cheek until she shivered. "Let's just say," he breathed into her hair, "they knew exactly where to find me."

Megumi tweaked his ear until he yelped. "And here I was so worried about you, you useless lump."

That night, as the storm continued to rage outside, Sano brought out his sake and joined the men gambling in the now-bright and noisy dining hall, merely scratching his head and offering his most roguish smile when Megumi's displeased gaze fell on him.

"We're not playing for money," Sano protested to his wife's rapidly retreating back.

"You're a lucky bastard, Sagara-san," Megumi heard Hibayashi comment as she checked on the soundly sleeping Minamoto in the guest room.

"Let's keep it that way, gentlemen." And she guessed that the hearty, rumbling laughter that answered belonged to Hibayashi.

The next day dawned pale and chill and motionless, the snow pristine and glistening over everything in sight. Wrapping her warmest haori closely around her shoulders, Megumi came up to where Sanosuke was sending off the men at the gate. They would move Minamoto to a clinic, Hibayashi told her almost apologetically, and then attend to some unfinished business.

"Yeah, you don't know what other strays are gonna come wandering in," drawled Sanosuke with his lazy grin. And though perhaps he was as friendly toward the men as though they shared some private joke, Megumi thought he shut the gate in Hibayashi's face with a little more haste than was really necessary.

"What on earth was all that about?" huffed Megumi, rubbing her cold hands together as Sanosuke closed the front entrance door behind them.

Despite herself, her eyelids fluttered shut and she shuddered in anticipation as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the fall of her fragrant hair. "What did I ever do to deserve a babe like you, Megitsune?" he mumbled.

She smiled into his kiss, suddenly warm and pliant and happy. "That answer isn't responsive to the question, toriatama."

He groaned teasingly, tracing kisses down her chin, tangling his fingers in her hair. "I'm glad to be home, and I'm glad to be home with you"—she let slip a most undoctorly giggle as he nipped at her ear—"and that guy better be glad that Special Officer Sagara is on vacation and _really_ not thinking about work right now."

They never heard from Hibayashi or any of the others again. But a few days later, Sano found an enormous heap of firewood outside his gate and a flask of some of the best sake he had ever tasted. And as the winter wore on into spring and summer, rumor spread that the bandits had mysteriously disappeared, and the mountain trails were clear and safe once again.

_owari

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This was originally written for the "Rurouni Kenshin Fanfic Challenge" LJ comm way back in January 2006 (oh how time flies). The monthly theme was "snow." It was pretty hastily written and I haven't been able to edit it since I posted it but... er, I hope it was still satisfactory.

Now back to work on "Over Him"... _sweatdrops_


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